Review: Dream Corp LLC “Accordian Jim”

Don’t eat the truth paste.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

This episode begins with Patient 88 being mauled in a dog attack, and then continues with Dr. Roberts treating Patient 13, who is a military agent complete with a chrome dome used to secure her brain space.

The agent is traumatized and needs help, and after some mishaps with Randy and his missing lasagna shirt, Dr. Roberts proceeds to get to work. Treatment begins, and Roberts enters Patient 13’s head, where he tries to help the patient with her aggression problems. However, things go south when Patient 13 starts beating up the sign spinner, while Randy is too busy fighting with T.E.R.R.Y. to help.

With the assistance of their intern, they manage to pull Dr. Roberts out. The good doctor soothes the situation between Randy and T.E.R.R.Y. , and enters the Patient’s dream once more, while Patient 13 starts beating up Patient 88. With the doctor’s help, Patient 13 deals with her violence issues by punching her father, who is what inspired her aggression in the first place. Dr. Roberts talks her through her pain, and, in the form of Aphrodite coming from the sea, explains that Patient 13’s father is proud of her.

With her treatment complete, Dr. Roberts offers Patient 88 as a punching bag for any future violent tendencies she might have. So I guess it all worked out.

Our Take:

Our episode this time is one more focused on the funny than the story. It’s well executed in that pursuit, but an episode that doesn’t have the same level of depth and dream complexity that the prior two episodes of the season had.

Patient 13 is a compelling character, one who brings a good mix of humor and drama to the fray. This is emphasized, of course, by her violent tendencies that manifest as a funny episode-wide gag of Patient 88 getting the crap beat out of him by Patient 13. Her problem is more funny than compelling, though, and one that gets solved by something of a platitude from Dr. Roberts, where I feel there was more depth to what we’ve seen before that made the dream therapy more interesting.

However, this episode did a lot right in terms of comedy. Randy is quickly growing to become one of my favorite characters, and they really let him run the show by arguing with T.E.R.R.Y over his Garfield lasagna shirt. Randy gets some really fun side stories to laugh at, and his manchild ways get all the laughs here. Patient 88 as a punching bag is a good gag made great by the finishing touches on the edge of the episode, which dehumanizes him even more by being “sold” to Patient 13 as her personal anger receptacle.

Dr. Roberts continues to be the binding force that makes everything in this show work, but all the little bits from the minor cast members are also vital to the delicate symphony that this show engages with. Even though their time is small, the minor characters of the show feel real, alive and, most importantly, funny. Just funny in different ways. Dr. Roberts functions well as a “maybe” sociopath, who is as positive and helpful as he is manipulative and business minded. There’s nothing funnier than watching him tell a patient who just received a life-changing treatment that they should sign up for the Dream Corp loyalty program.

As always, there’s a lot to love here in Dream Corp LLC. The eccentric nature of this series still defies imagination, functioning as a zany indy Adult Swim comedy while still making time for the important moments. While I would’ve liked more from the depth of the dream sequences this time around, I’m not about to hold that against a show that has become an indy darling for the always-adventurous Adult Swim.